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James Webb: Jupiter pictures from the world's biggest space telescope
Image source, NASA/ESA/CSA/Jupiter ERS Team/Judy Schmidt
Nasa has revealed new pictures of Jupiter taken by the James Webb space telescope.
The world's largest and most powerful telescope took the photos of the solar system's biggest planet last month.
The images show in detail giant storms, moons and rings surrounding Jupiter that astronomers have described as "incredible".
James Webb was launched on Christmas Day 2021 to succeed the ageing Hubble Space Telescope.
Image source, NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI
Nasa said that several infrared photos of the planet were taken by the telescope in July and put together to create the image.
The photographs were then artificially coloured to make the features stand out because infrared light is invisible to the human eye.
The pictures shows auroras - light displays in the sky caused by the Sun - above both the northern and southern poles of Jupiter.
It also shows the storms, moons and rings surrounding Jupiter in detail.
Jupiter's famous Great Red Spot - a famous storm so big it could swallow Earth - is also visible in the images, appearing white because it reflects a lot of sunlight.
The high quality of the pictures have surprised space scientists.
Planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, who worked on the project, said: "We've never seen Jupiter like this. It's all quite incredible.
"We hadn't really expected it to be this good, to be honest," she added.
The James Webb telescope is currently about one million miles from Earth.
It's so powerful it can detect light which began travelling towards Earth 13 BILLION years ago, just moments after the Big Bang.